Rote Versus Meaningful Learning 1

Richard E. Mayer is a professor of psychology and education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. L EARNING INVOLVES THE ACQUISITION of knowledge. This is a commonsense view of learning that has implications for how to teach—such as presenting information to learners in books and lectures—and how to assess—such as testing to see how much of the presented material students can remember (Mayer, 2001). The revised Taxonomy is based on a broader vision of learning that includes not only acquiring knowledge but also being able to use knowledge in a variety of new situations. When taking a knowledge acquisition view of learning, teachers sometimes emphasize one kind of cognitive processing in instruction and assessment—what we call Remembering. Like the original Taxonomy, however, the revised Taxonomy is based on the idea that schooling can be expanded to include a fuller range of cognitive processes. The purpose of this article is to describe this fuller range of processes in more detail. Two of the most important educational goals are to promote retention and to promote transfer (which, when it occurs, indicates meaningful learning). Retention is the ability to remember material at some later time in much the same way it was presented during instruction. Transfer is the ability to use what was learned to solve new problems, answer new questions, or facilitate learning new subject matter (Mayer & Wittrock, 1996). In short, retention requires that students remember what they have learned, whereas transfer requires students not only to remember but also to make sense of and be able to use what they have learned (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; Detterman & Sternberg, 1993; Haskell, 2001; Mayer, 1995; McKeough, Lupart, & Marini, 1995; Phye, 1997). Stated somewhat differently, retention focuses on the past; transfer emphasizes the future. After reading a textbook lesson on Ohm’s Law, for example, a retention test might include questions asking students to write the formula for Ohm’s Law. In contrast, a transfer test might include questions asking students to rearrange an electrical circuit to maximize the rate of electron flow or to use Ohm’s Law to explain a complex electric circuit. Although educational objectives for promoting retention are fairly easy to construct, educators may have more difficulty in formulating, teaching, and assessing objectives aimed at promoting transfer (Baxter, Elder, & Glaser, 1996; Mayer, 2002; Phye, 1997). The revised Taxonomy is intended to help broaden the typical set of educational objectives to include those aimed at promoting transfer.